


The Turning Point

by Mudblood428



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood Drinking, Blood and Injury, Drama & Romance, M/M, Making Out, Pain, Redemption, Temporary Character Death, Vampire Turning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-23 22:30:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17088953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mudblood428/pseuds/Mudblood428
Summary: When Simon’s life hangs by a thread, Baz is forced to decide whether to let Simon die, or offer him a new life -- at a cost.





	The Turning Point

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a departure from the Carry On timeline from the moment Simon kills the Mage. In this universe, Baz and Penny are minutes too late arriving on the scene, but as we all know, when it comes to life and death, minutes can make all the difference.
> 
> Acknowledgments: Thank you so much to TBazzsnow and my dear husband for beta reading this. You truly helped make this fic something special. :)

##  **Part 1: The Turning**

**SIMON**

“ ** _Stop it! Stop hurting me!_** ”

My voice resonates with magic that isn’t mine. In an instant, the Mage jerks away from me, then slumps to the ground, a bloody heap covered in muck resembling someone I used to know and trust.

I lift myself onto my hands and knees, winded, as Penny and Baz call my name and run toward me from a trap door in the floor. All I can think is, _you’re too late_.

The Humdrum is gone. The Mage is dead. And I’m too stunned to feel anything.

No.

I do feel something.

 _Something’s wrong_.

“Simon, are you alright?” asks Penny, rushing to my side to help me to my feet. Baz looks warily down at the Mage, and I see his nostrils quiver at the scent of blood overwhelming his nose.

“Penny,” I say, and I hear myself from far away. “I think… I killed him.”

There’s darkness coiling in the center of my chest, but it isn’t grief.

Baz is watching me closely now; I can tell he’s reading my thoughts off the expression on my face. “Snow, what was the Mage doing to you?”

“He needed my magic… but it’s gone now,” I say. “All of it. I gave it to the Humdrum.” I can hardly believe it, but it’s true. My magic defeated us both.

“You did it, didn’t you,” Baz says, his gray eyes wide. “You beat the Humdrum!”

“Oh, Simon, your magic,” whispers Penny, but Baz is still watching my face, and he holds up a hand.

“Snow?”

At that moment, something scalding unravels in my ribs, coursing outward and through me like acid. The pain is blinding, forcing me to the ground, and Baz and Penny rush to my side. When it finishes passing through me, I feel worse than weak - I’m decimated.

I squint at Baz, but he’s not looking at me. He’s glaring at the Mage like he might tear his throat out with his teeth even though he’s already dead.

It’s the last thing I see before I black out.

**BAZ**

I catch Simon before he hits the floor. He’s unresponsive, but perspiring and shaking like he’s just come down with a fever, and we still have no bloody idea what’s wrong with him. I’m casting **_Get Well Soon!_** and **_Do No Harm!_** over him like an idiot, while Bunce sits next to me, wringing her hands and staring intensely at Simon like she’s waiting for Merlin himself to appear with a miracle.

“Nothing is working,” I say, tucking my wand up my sleeve and raking a hand through my hair.

“I’m not sure anything will,” she murmurs.

“What does that mean?”

“The Mage must have figured out how to take power by force...” Bunce glances back at Ebb’s body in horrified disgust. “It’s like he tried to conjure some kind of magickal parasite. Oh Merlin, I bet he succeeded!”

“But Simon said he had no magic left to take. If not magic, then what is it taking?” I demand. She’s nearly as pale as I am when she answers, her voice hollow.

“Simon’s life.”

I’m gaping at her. “That’s not possible.”

“Think about it! The Mage was trying to draw Simon’s magic into himself but Simon had none to give. And now that the Mage is dead, not only is the spell taking whatever energy Simon has left, it has no anchor. No recipient. _No one_ is attached to it anymore that could control or contain it.”

“Are you suggesting this spell or curse or whatever it is… is _alive_?”

“It seems so. It’s acting independently of its caster,” she says, her voice quivering as she places a hand on Simon’s forehead. “Maybe Simon himself is fueling it. And it’ll keep drawing what it needs from him until-“

“Until he has nothing left,” I finish. I feel sick with fury. “How much time before…” I can’t say ‘Simon’s death.’ My voice won’t let me. 

“I don’t know. The spell took hold so quickly, it could be hours. Minutes, even. Unless...,” she whispers.

“Unless?”

She’s still staring at Simon when she says, “Baz. What if you Turn him?”

“ _What_?”

“Turn him. Make him a vampire!”

She looks at me like she’s just cracked the code to a bank vault, but I don’t need a single second to think about this suggestion before I say, “Absolutely not.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t need a reason not to bring another vampire into the world. It’s out of the question. I won’t do it.”

“But Turning him might make him immune to the spell, the way you’re immune to Simon’s magic! It’s practically a cure!”

“Being a vampire is its own _disease_ , not a cure,” I snap at her, the edges of my composure starting to fray.  “We’ll come up with a different plan.”

“What other plan can there be?” she asks, gesticulating wildly with her hands. “This is seriously dark magic, Baz. I’ve never seen a ritual like this, and there isn’t time to find a doctor in or out of the magickal world that can undo whatever the Mage has done to Simon!”

 _The fucking Mage._ I wish I could kill him twice over for what he’s done - to my mother, to Simon, to me, and to the rest of my life if I have to spend it without Snow.

Because I can’t do what Bunce is asking for. I can’t do it to Simon. Or myself.

“Turning him is not an option,” I snarl, spacing my words to drive the point home further. “We’ll think of something else!”

“There is no other way!”

Suddenly, Bunce's eyes widen behind her ridiculous glasses.

"What an idiot I’ve been. To think I nearly bought your insidious act,” she spits. “You won't save him because, this way, Simon's finished off and it's all neat and tidy for you, isn't it?"

"Of course, you'd come to _that_ fucking conclusion, wouldn't you?" I fire back.

"I should curse you out the bloody window!" Bunce is glaring at me like she's just worked out that I'm a bloodsucking villain, and the only thing to do now is figure out which stake to plow into my heart. "You said it yourself, didn't you? The person who takes him out will get a crown!"

Everything around us is already wrecked, but I’m just short of indulging the impulse to destroy what’s left of the room, Bunce included. "That's not why I won't bite him!"

"It is!” She's weeping openly now. “Simon’s always been your target! You’ve wanted to take him out from the beginning, haven’t you! Well, congratulations, you can have what you’ve always wanted. All you have to do is stand by and do nothing!"

I grab her roughly by the shoulders. "You have it backwards, you imbecile! _Simon_ is what I’ve always wanted,” I roar at her, “because I’m in love with him!"

Bunce staggers backward, like I’ve just slapped her.

"You’re... _what_?"

I’ve never said these words aloud. Not even to Snow. But the rafters echo them back at me, and it’s definitely my voice, and I think I might start crying, too.

"I love him. I want him to live more than anything,” I say, my voice breaking. "But I can't make him a vampire. I won't make a monster of him."

“But… How long?”

I can’t look at her astonished eyes, so I glare at the floor. “Long enough.”

“And Simon-” She gasps. “He nearly launched himself out of Agatha’s car... to come back to _you_!”

I tear at my hair. I hate everything about this conversation. Every minute wasted talking about feelings while Simon’s life goes out like a candle makes me want to sink my teeth into something.

“Fuck a unicorn’s horn, Baz! Everything makes sense now!” Bunce seems to come back to herself then, because she no longer looks dazed. She’s livid. She throws a punch at my shoulder, and it lands surprisingly hard considering it comes from a five-foot-tall imp in Mary Janes. “I should thrash you both for keeping this a secret from me!”

“For Crowley’s sake, there was hardly a secret to keep! It only just happened!”

"But you love him! Some part of you _must_ know there’s no other option,” she asserts shoving her finger into my chest. “If you don't Turn him... he'll die!”

I’m at my limit. If I don’t yell, I’ll burst into tears, and I’m not ready to do that in front of Bunce, no matter what I’ve just confessed to her. "There is no outcome here that does not end in Simon's death," I snarl. "That's what being a vampire is, Bunce. It's just death of a different kind!"

"Simon doesn't believe you're dead!"

"It doesn't matter what Simon believes!” I squeeze my eyes shut and force back the tears that threaten to fall. “You’re asking too much of me, Penelope. His magic is gone. I won’t take his soul.”

"Is that how you think of yourself?" she asks, taking me by the wrists and daring to look me in my eyes even though I'm famished and half crazed. "I know being a vampire may be a less-than-ideal existence, but consider a world in which Simon Snow is just... gone."

"Damn it, Bunce. I know," I growl.

"You just have to bite him."

"’ _Just have to bite him_ ’? Do you have any idea how absurd you sound? I've never bitten a human! I also haven't fed in a day! What if I can't stop myself? What if I bite him and, instead of Turning him, I kill him?"

"Baz, _look at him_." I look over my shoulder, and the scene before me wrings the tears from my eyes in spite of me. Simon is bundled in his wings, clutching himself by the arms, his legs curled in. He's breathing shallowly through clenched teeth as though he’s focusing all his remaining energy on surviving one single second at a time. Seeing him this way… I can’t bear it.

I wipe my face and stalk away from them to pace about the room. Where is the justice if someone so inherently good must trade in his magic and his life to save a world he won’t even belong to anymore? Simon Snow deserves a happy ending. It’s all he’s ever hoped for. He’s put up with the worst this life has to offer (he’s put up with _me_ ) and he deserves to ride off into the sunset a hero, not spend a possible eternity in purgatory as a bloodthirsty, undead freak.

"Baz..." It's Simon’s voice this time, rasping my name. I look back to see him reaching his hand out, eyes pinched shut against the pain.

I run back and kneel down beside him, taking his hand. It's clammy and cold already, but as my other hand reaches out to touch his face, I can feel his fever pouring off of him before I even make contact with his skin. "Here," I whisper. "I'm here."

"Don’t leave," he gasps.

"I’m not going anywhere. We're going to figure this out," I say. "You'll be okay."

"Doesn’t seem so,” he whispers. “Timing’s awful, isn’t it..."

He means us. Our truce, our friendship, and everything after it - we’d only just won each other, and now he’s going to leave me. His eyelids open enough to expose the profound sadness behind them. Tears brim around his lashes.

I look up at Bunce. She has her hands clasped together over her heart. She looks like she’s praying.

I never had a choice, did I?

"There might be a way to save you," I say softly, moving a curl off of his forehead. "Bunce thinks I should Turn you."

"She does?"

I nod. "She thinks there’s a good chance you’d survive.”

"Does that mean… you’d have to bite me?"

I try my best not to sound utterly terrified, which I am. "Yes, I’d have to bite you. I don’t know exactly what would happen after that, but presumably, you'd just... be like me," I reply.

“Brooding and sarcastic?” he says, between gasps for breath.

"Now’s not the time to be a fucking comedian."

Simon’s attempt to smile at me looks more like a grimace. I’ll never know what I did to deserve a boy who’d crack jokes at the end of the world just to lift the mood.

"Will it hurt?" he asks.

I pause a moment to search my memories. I can’t remember being Turned. I know it took time - I came into my blood thirst in adolescence because I'd been bitten as a child. If I bite him now, he could turn instantly and, for all I know, the transformation could be brutal.

"I don't know," I admit.

"Will I live forever?"

"You'll live for longer, that’s certain."

Simon’s wings have wrapped themselves around him, cocooning him. He shakes his head and swallows. "Either way... going up in flames seems a lot faster... and less painful... than this..." He winces. “What are your thoughts?"

I press his hand between my palms. "I didn't get a choice when I was Turned. I won’t make it for you. I won't do it unless you really want it. You have to be sure."

Simon's eyes close and he braces himself against another wave of pain. When he answers at last, it comes out as a strangled plea. " _Do it_."

My heart drops into my stomach at his words. "Alright. I will.”

I nod as confidently as I can, then leave his side and stride over to Bunce. I take off my suit jacket and thrust it into her arms, bringing my face within biting distance of hers as I do it. Though she shrinks back because she’s afraid of me, I can't have Simon hearing what I'm about to say.

"Listen to me, Bunce,” I whisper. “I don't know what will happen after I bite him. It's already been too long since I’ve fed, and I'm under a fair bit of stress, here. You have to promise me - if it looks like Snow’s in danger, you’ll do what you must to stop me. Whatever it takes, understand? Stake me through the heart. Torch me if you have to."

She’s looking at me like she’s never seen me before. “Baz, I don’t think-“

"Promise me!"

She nods once. “I promise.”

I turn back to Simon. He looks so pale, he could be a vampire already.

Both wings unfold as I kneel on the ground beside Simon and lean over him. Gently, I lift him into my arms. He's blazing hot but trembling, so I hold him tightly against me, my face nestled in his shoulder. I feel his arms wrap shakily around me.

"Crowley, I don't want to do this," I whisper.

"No turning back now," he gasps. "I trust you. I'm ready."

Staring down the chimera was easier than this. I've never been so frightened. To calm us both, I lift my head up and kiss Simon’s lips. I don’t care that Bunce is watching and I can practically hear her jaw land on the floor behind me. This could be the last time I hold Simon Snow.

I pull away from his mouth, and with one hand circled behind his head, I tilt his face away to leave his neck exposed. Resting my cheek against his, my lips gently graze the mole below his jaw. The way his arm is draped on my shoulder, we could be dancing. When he sighs, I feel it like a warm breeze through my hair.

I close my eyes.

And I breathe him in.

His magic is gone now, and with it, the essence of smoke. He smells sweet - like butter and brown sugar - and it's oddly comforting, like afternoons in the kitchen with my mother when I was little. But there's something bitter there as well; it’s the spell the Mage has cast on Simon, chemical and mixed with the scent of Simon’s sweat. I focus all my attention on his sweetness and inhale deeply.

All my senses are sharpening now; my ears begin to pick up the sound of his pulse, thready but constant. Drawing in another breath, my arms turn to stone. They're holding Simon fast so he couldn’t move even if he wanted to.

These are the first signs that I'm slipping away. The predator in me is awake.

I keep breathing him in, more deeply this time, letting my human side recede until, at last, it's there...

_The Hunger._

I feel it rise to the surface of my being until my fangs begin to press eagerly against my lips. I don’t open my eyes because they’ve stopped focusing. There's only the scent of Simon filling my nose. All I have to do is open my mouth.

He wants this.

_He's so... full..._

I part my lips, and like a magnet to metal, my fangs sink into his neck. I hear Simon cry out and his body tenses in my arms.

My mouth floods the moment I pierce him. His blood is on my tongue now. The taste of it sends a shock through me.

_Aleister Crowley. Simon’s blood._

It's rich and hot and sweet with notes of iron - not at all like the thin, sour blood of the rats in the Catacombs or the gamey, bland blood of the deer in the forest by my family home.

No, this... this is _divine_. It’s so satisfying. I've never tasted anything like this. It's filling the corners of my mouth until my every thought begins and ends with swallowing and taking in more of him. I struggle to form a single rational thought.

One thought does emerge, and it’s a warning: _Don’t drink it._

Simon Snow’s tears are running onto my face. If I swallow, it’s an open invitation for the monster to take over. One bite is all it takes to Turn a person, and now that I've done it, I need to let him go. I must.

_I can't._

What happens next happens without my consent.

My arm tightens around him, and he grips my shoulder. I bury my teeth deeper into his flesh, pull more blood into my mouth, and it slides down my throat with a burn like I’ve swallowed warm rum.

The effect is instant. I feel Simon's essence surge into my bloodstream, and it makes my limbs sizzle with heat. My synapses are ablaze as though I’ve shot myself through with heroin. In my blood vessels, I feel two pulses - mine and his.

My God.

This is bliss. I feel alive in a way I haven't felt before in my entire life. Perhaps I was never truly a vampire before this moment; it took taking blood from a _human_ to fully realize the creature I am. Surely this was my destiny all along. Why had I ever stopped myself from feasting this way?

An ancient voice deep within speaks to me. _Take him. Take all of him._

"Baz," Simon murmurs weakly.

_No. Not yet..._

"Baz, stop," cries Bunce, and she's pulling at my shoulders.

As if that could move me now. As if I couldn't grab her by her throat and put her next in line.

_So good..._

"Baz!" she shouts.

I hear her from far away. Like she's calling to me from across a void.

I whimper into Simon's neck.

_More..._

" ** _Part the seas!_** " Bunce screams, and the spell sends me flying, slamming me into the opposite wall so hard I see stars. I fall to the ground with a thud that knocks the wind out of my lungs and jolts me out of my feeding frenzy like I’ve been dropped into a tub of ice water.

"Oh... fuck... me...," I cough out. I roll slowly onto my stomach and try to raise myself onto all fours. My lips are stained and dripping.

With Simon’s blood.

“ _No_ ,” I whisper and frantically wipe my mouth on my sleeve, taking care to spit the rest out.

What have I done?

Before I can even ask if Simon's alive, the words halt in my throat and I retch onto the floor. I cough up every last ounce of Simon's blood; there must be nearly a pint of it. It's as if some part of me - the part that never wanted to do this in the first place; that, by some miracle, is still human and loves Simon and would never willingly hurt him - might actually be _allergic_ to human blood.

I'm weak and cold again after emptying the contents of my stomach, but I manage to find my voice. "Simon.... Bunce, is he all right?"

"I think I stopped you in time, but he's still bleeding! Help me, Baz!"

I crawl back towards them, my limbs numb and shaking with the loss of Simon's blood. Bunce’s hands are coated in it as she tries to stem the bleeding, making it impossible for her to cast with her ring. I have strength enough to tear off my shirt, sending buttons flying, and press it into the wound on his neck. The wound I gave him.

His blood is streaming from an outline of my own teeth.

I think I might throw up again, I’m so repulsed by what I’ve done. But another look at Simon’s face reminds me there’s no time for self-loathing. He’s fading.

"Take hold of this, Bunce, and keep the pressure on," I rasp. She adeptly moves her hands over mine to take my place holding the shirt to Simon's neck. I force myself not to stare at Simon's eyes, which gaze out at nothing, an empty blue.

I pull my wand out and hold it over the wound. " ** _Come together_** ," I cry out, pulling the last of my magic from the nearly empty well within me and sending it through my wand. " ** _Come together, right now!_** " I imagine the open cuts in his skin cauterizing back together. I pray for it.

Simon moves, then. His eyes fly open, and at first, I can't tell what's happening. He writhes away from us onto his side, arching his back, and an agonized keen tears from his throat.

"Simon!" shrieks Bunce, and I intercept her before she touches him.

"No, stay away from him," I shout. I fall on top of Simon, roll him onto his back and pin him under my weight, holding his wrists firmly to keep him from injuring himself on the shards of glass that surround us. It feels like I'm wrangling a lion, he's so strong. His wings beat against the floorboards like a trapped gryphon, sending shimmering dust in all directions.

It's happening. He's Turning.

Bunce and I watch in horror as the golden hues in his skin begin to fade away.

My head whips around to look at her. "He's going to be hungry," I grunt between gritted teeth. (Fuck. He's so strong and I just threw up everything that might have given me a physical advantage.) "Find him something to feed on, and fast! I don't care what it is - spell some pigeons off the ledge for all I care - but he might come out of this famished, and you are the easiest prey in the room!"

“But, what do I… how am I…” Bunce is stammering. I think maybe she realizes now that this wasn't the simple solution she thought it would be.

"Bunce, _now_ ," I holler at her. She clamps her lips shut and dashes out of sight.

Meanwhile, Simon's body is still seizing. I use the rest of my strength to pull his arms into his sides and hold him still. Sweat is pouring off of his forehead in streams.

"Easy," I whisper. "I have you, darling. I have you..."

The minutes pass like an eternity, but his quaking finally subsides. I'm still holding onto Simon with all my strength, but his breath eventually evens. I try to help it along. I breathe in time with him, taking in and letting go of each inhalation with increasing space in-between, hoping he follows my lead, until at last the shaking stops and Simon has gone limp beneath me.

"Simon?" I’m dizzy and my hair is in my eyes.

He shakes his head, like he's just waking from a deep sleep. "Baz..."

"I’m here. Are you alright? Is there any pain?"

"No pain... But... you're crushing me."

I shift myself onto the floor beside him, and Simon coughs and takes in a deep breath. His skin is ashen and cold under my hands, which is telling given my hands are already cold. But his eyes glimmer their familiar blue as they lift to look into mine.

"You're not wearin’ a shirt," he says, his words slightly slurred.

I frown at him. "You were bleeding to death, and I was short on supplies. Call the coven."

"I wasn’t complaining." Simon smiles weakly up at me. I’m relieved to see him grinning, but far too traumatized myself to return the smile.

"Am I a vampire now?" He asks. He sounds as if he’s not convinced he didn’t dream up the last ten minutes.

"I think so, yes."

"Merlin and Morgana,” he chuckles, bringing a hand to his forehead. “You really did it. You bit me, and it wasn’t fatal."

"Thank Bunce,” I say quietly. “I would’ve finished you off if not for her, you absolute nightmare. How do you feel?"

His grin disappears. It's as I suspected. Simon didn't Turn gradually like I did. He didn't grow into this bloodthirsty mess of an existence over the course of years, he was thrust into it in a matter of minutes, and he's looking at me now as though everything I told him in Hampshire is coming back to him in stark relief. It makes my heart ache.

"I'm... hungry."

"I know. I’ve sent Bunce to bring you something to feed on. I’ll… show you what to do," I whisper. Then I press my forehead to his. It’s cold. "Do you regret this?"

Simon shakes his head, his curls still sopping wet with perspiration. "No. I can live with this," he breathes.

Of course he can. He’s Simon Snow. A born survivor.

“Baz?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you,” he whispers. Simon’s eyes roll back, and his head tips to the side. He’s fainted.

I find my suit jacket and cover him. Then I lie down beside him, my head on his shoulder, and wait for Bunce.

He can live with this, he says.

Can I?

  

* * *

 

##  **Part 2: Returning**

**SIMON**

The new year came and went with barely any celebration at all.

Watford has closed its doors for the entire month of January out of respect for its grieving student population given the tragic deaths of its headmaster and goatherd. Penny’s mum has taken over in the interim and, given the hole over Hampshire and the particulars of my “condition,” she allowed Baz, Penny, and me to return to campus while the school grounds run on a skeleton crew. Headmistress Bunce is now one of a select few who know about Baz and me being vampires - there was no hiding it once she arrived on the scene with Premal and heard what happened.

Penny has inherited my cross necklace, and thanks to her powers of persuasion (on my behalf) and the advocacy of Baz’s family (on his), we get to remain here for a short time while the investigations proceed, and we won’t be stricken (although, now that my magic is gone, maybe I should be). Watford no longer feels like home now - I just can’t separate it from the horrors I’ve seen here - but until I can fend for myself as a vampire, I’m practically Baz’s charge, and we have nowhere else to go.

In the meantime, Baz surprises me by demonstrating his capacity for patience as he shows me the ropes of vampire life. The days immediately following the events at the White Chapel, he did my hunting for me since, even in a weakened state, I felt like a rhinoceros let loose in a china shop. I couldn’t gauge my own strength, and I obviously couldn’t be discreet; we were still trying to figure what to do about my wings and tail.

Baz finally caves in to my demands to take me hunting, and we try my luck in the Wavering Wood together. I succeed in trapping my first deer, even if Baz has to use magic to spell my wings invisible and draw a buck near enough for me to snare it. I eventually insist on trying alone, armed with only my heightened senses to guide my hunt. It takes hours, but I catch a doe after deciding that, if I’m stuck with wings, I’d better learn to use them to my advantage. I attack from above.

(An actual _winged vampire_ is what I’ve become. I’ve never heard of a worse cliche.)

I fully expect Baz to gloat over my reliance on him, but he doesn’t. Though he’s nearly always with me, he’s… distant. I was too, at first, when it became clear that my magic was never coming back and I was agonizing night and day over the possibility that I was a murderer. Sometimes I think being in our old room is to blame; this has always been the epicenter of our hostility, and the tenderness I feel toward Baz feels foreign in it.

There are exceptions. Nightmares come at night, and when they do, Baz crawls into my bed beside me to hold me until the terror subsides and I fall back to sleep, but by morning, he’s back on his side of our room, facing away from me. If it didn’t happen almost nightly, I’d think I dreamt it.

Mostly, I wonder if everything that happened -  the Mage murdering his mother and attacking me, the Humdrum, my transformation, the hole over Hampshire - was too much for our budding relationship to survive. When I list it all out that way, I think it’s a miracle Baz spends any time with me at all.

I think that’s why he hasn’t kissed me in weeks. I’ve been afraid to take the initiative, because I can’t seem to stop my fangs from popping any time I think about trying it. Granted, it’s not like Baz would be in any danger if I bit him - he’s already a vampire - but I can’t find anything romantic in the idea of sinking my teeth into my boyfriend.

If that’s what he is anymore.

Baz is reclining in bed one late afternoon reading when I decide I’ve left the topic alone long enough. I sit on his bed, facing him.

“I miss you,” I say quietly.

He doesn’t look up from his book. He’s reading something by someone whose name I can’t even pronounce. ‘Dostoyevsky.’ (Honestly, it’s like Baz goes out of his way to make himself as bored as possible.)

He turns a page. “How can you miss me? I’m attached to your hip every moment of the day unless one of us is in the shower or taking a piss,” he answers lightly.

“It sounds like we’re in solitary confinement together when you put it that way,” I say, frowning.

“That would be something since ‘solitary’ means alone.”

“You know what I mean.” I pull the book out of his hand and leave it open to his page on the bed beside us. “Why won’t you look at me?”

“I look at you.”

“Not in the eye,” I observe, and though I succeed in making him glance up at my face, his eyes flit away. “Baz… do you not want to be together anymore?”

He sits upright and sighs. “Of course, I want to be with you.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

He stares at his hands. “I just… can’t look at you yet,” he whispers.

“Why not?” I bring a hand to his chin and lift his face up toward me, revealing a sorrowful set of deep sea-gray eyes.

I’ve seen Baz upset, but never like this. In the forest, the night I first kissed him, he wore his pain angrily and defiantly. But here before me, he’s open wide and exposed. Scared. Like he’s standing on a cliff willing himself not to fall off.

“I can’t look at you,” he murmurs, “without being reminded of what I did.”

“You Turned me to save me. What terrible thing do you think you’ve done?”

“I lost control, Simon... I became the creature I’ve spent my entire life trying not to-“ 

A strangled sob cuts off his sentence, and he drops his face in his hand.

“No,” I protest, and I pull him into my arms. “You’re not a monster.”

“I am,” he says, his voice breaking. “If it hadn’t been for Bunce, I would have taken your life.”

“You _saved_ my life! The state you were in, anyone would have been compromised. What you did was heroic,” I say emphatically. “For Merlin’s sake, Baz, losing control doesn’t make you a monster. It makes you human.”

Baz is crying silently into my shoulder. I rest my cheek against his hair and just let him go.

“Your shirt’s wet,” he says after a minute, his voice muffled.

“It’s alright,” I reply. “This is your jumper, anyway.”

“Git.”

“You know, it’s probably good you Turned me when you did - while Penny was there to make sure you didn’t drain me,” I say, smiling. “Whether it was a month ago or ten years from now, you know you would have had to do it sooner or later. It would have happened eventually.”

Baz pulls away to frown at me. “It would not.”

“Yes, it would,” I say, using my sleeve to wipe the remaining tears from his face. “Because if there’s even a chance vampires are immortal, there’s no way I would let you face forever without me.”

He’s looking in my eyes now. Finally. His gaze is so intense, it feels like he’s looking through me instead of at me.

He smiles at me then. “You are so…” he begins, but his voice trails off.

“Bewitching?” I offer.

“No-”

“Courageous?”

“Simon-”

“Impressive?”

He stops my mouth with his fingertips. “Impossible.” He leans in to kiss me, but I hold him back.

"There's something I need to ask you about before you do... _that_ ," I say. His eyebrows meet in the middle. "Why is it, every time I want to kiss you, I think... I might bite you?"

“Oh,” he says, looking relieved, although I can’t find anything to feel good about in what I’ve just said. "That’s the bloodlust. In the beginning, your hunger gets all tied up with your emotions. So that, when you want someone, it’s like you want... everything. I suppose every vampire goes through it."

"Did you go through it?"

"Yeah. I was fifteen. I was a fucking mess, too. I looked at you and I couldn't tell what I wanted more: To kiss you, or devour you. To kiss you _while_ devouring you. It nearly drove me mad."

"You could cross a couple of those off the bucket list now," I laugh.

He makes a disgusted face at me.

“I’m sorry. Too soon,” I mutter, clearing my throat.

“Anyway,” Baz continues, visibly shaking off my comment, “it lessens over time. Eventually you learn the difference."

"Between what?"

"Between hunger for blood and... desire," he murmurs, and he leans in again. He’s nearly at my lips before I interrupt him.

"Next question.”

“Aleister fucking Crowley.” Baz falls back against the bed and pulls the pillow over his face.

“What does it mean if I want to bite another vampire?" I crawl on top of him, and slide my arms behind his shoulders and back.

He lifts the pillow off his face. "It means you're an idiot, Snow. Another vampire would make the worst blood meal in the world."

“I didn’t say ‘eat,’ did I?” I murmur, and this time, I’m leaning in. But Baz’s eyes widen for a moment, and I can tell: my fangs have popped. I sigh, exasperated, and my face falls into his shoulder.

“ _Jesus Christ_. Are you going to help me sort this out or not? If I don’t kiss you soon, I’m going to lose my fucking mind.”

He’s cackling at me, wearing his stupid sneery grin, but I don’t care because the sound of his laughter warms me in a way I haven’t felt since I Turned.

“You’re pathetic, Snow,” he sighs. “Okay. Here’s the trick.”

At last, something that sounds like it might be simple compared to what I’ve been doing for three weeks. Vampire training has felt like learning how to be an entirely different species from scratch.

“Think of something you really don’t want to eat,” he says. “Something that turns your stomach.”

I groan. “Oh, come on, Baz, you made it sound like it was going to be easy!”

“Crowley, Snow. You can’t tell me there’s nothing that ruins your appetite.”

“Just because I’m a vampire now doesn’t mean I’m suddenly a fussy eater,” I grumble. I run a hand over my face and try to think. “I guess… Well, I suppose I’m not much for eating stargazy pie.”

“Well done,” Baz says. “I’ll be sure to let Cook Pritchard know. Now, then - and here’s the tricky part - you just need to think of stargazy pie before you kiss me.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Are you putting me on?”

“Not at all,” he replies, matter-of-factly. “My methods might be juvenile, but I was never anyone’s vampire apprentice, you know. I had to figure these things out by myself.”

“What’s thinking about stargazy pie going to do?”

“It’ll turn off one kind of hunger…” He raises an eyebrow. “So you can focus on the other.”

“Just like that? Like flipping a switch?”

Baz nods. “Like flipping a switch.”

I’m skeptical, at best. “So, to keep from biting me, you imagined eating what?”

“Marmite.”

“Oh, sod off!”

“What? It’s true. That stuff tastes like its been harvested from a goblin’s toenails.”

I start giggling maniacally. Imagining a scenario in which Baz had to evoke the flavor of Marmite to keep from biting me, I can’t help myself - this makes me laugh so hard I lose my balance and roll right off the bed. (Wings make me top-heavy.)  And now Baz is laughing at _me_ , clutching his sides like he’s trying to hold himself together.

Our hooting and hilarity fill the room, and I realize this is the first time I’ve felt happy since losing my magic. Everything in between has been all uncertainty and grief and pain, but my anxiety about this new existence I’m living is finally wearing off and giving way to something I’ve never consciously felt before about my life, even before I Turned: anticipation. Like I finally have a reason to look ahead and hope.

By the time our laughter subsides, we’re both flushed (as flushed as two vampires can get, anyway) and wiping tears from our eyes.

“Okay, last question,” I say.

Baz lets out an impatient sigh. “Last one.”

“Would you ever bite another human again?"

"No," he says firmly. "I've sworn off human blood. It disagrees with me."

I raise my eyebrows. "It disagreed with you so much, you nearly finished me off."

"I reacted _after_ I had swallowed it," he clarifies, sneering at me. "You didn't taste like you were going to send me into toxic shock."

"What _did_ my blood taste like to you?"

Baz’s smile fades. "I thought we said no more questions. And anyway, why would you even ask me that?"

I shrug. "If it was good enough to make you lose your wits, I need to know what I have to measure up to now."

It appears this is not the answer Baz was expecting. It’s like I’ve stopped his brain in the middle of a thought. (One point for Snow.)

“I think I’d like to try out this trick of yours now,” I say, because his mouth is open and his hair is in his eyes and I want to kiss him. Desperately. I try imagining the most hideous looking stargazy pie from the bakery window across the street from the home in Cornwall where I used to live. Three fish heads and three fish tails sticking out of a burnt crust. It was an utter culinary abomination.

To my astonishment, this seems to work. I’m looking at Baz, I want him, but my fangs stay put.

He reads my mind. “Like a charm,” he says smugly.

“Shit, Baz. You’re a genius.”

“Obviously.”

Merlin. Baz’s eyes are focused on mine in a way they haven’t been since Christmas Eve.

I can’t wait a moment longer. With my fangs out of the way, I rush to his parted lips and kiss him like I’m starved of him, because I am. I’m too rough, and I’m pulling at him, pressing myself into him because I want to feel as much of him against me as I can. He doesn’t protest. Instead, he seems to absorb the force of my arms and my mouth, canceling out my desperate grasping with his graceful, measured movements. Like he knows that becoming a vampire has made me unstable in a different way than my magic had ever done, and he needs to contain me.

It’s insufferable. I don’t want Baz measured and careful. I want him untethered.

“Ah,” he gasps suddenly, jerking his face away from mine and bringing a hand to his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” I pant. “Did I hurt you?”

He withdraws his fingers from his lips. His blood is on them.

“No, it’s alright. Your teeth are sharper now. It’s just a nick,” he says.

He’s about to wipe it away before I intercept his hand with my own.

“Wait.”

Baz eyes me nervously. “What are you doing?”

“Evening the score.”

I tilt my head forward. There’s only a dot of red on his bottom lip. His eyelids slip shut, but he’s tense and holding his breath. Maybe he thinks I’m going to bite him.

(So far, so good. My fangs stay put. I really wish Baz had taught me this trick before teaching me anything else about being a vampire.)

Carefully, I kiss away the bead of red, then lick it off my lips. I wait to see if anything happens, but I feel calm. Controlled.

“I might have guessed...” I murmur before kissing his upper lip. Then the corner of his mouth, followed by the crease below his lower lip. With every kiss, I feel the tension easing out of his body.

“Guessed what?” he breathes. My lips travel to the softness where his jaw meets his neck.

“Sweet.” I kiss him on his Adam’s apple, and I feel him breathing faster. “And salty.” Another kiss; this time, to the dip between his collarbones. “Like you.”

“Aleister almighty,” he purrs, “you’re a quick study.”

“I have a good teacher,” I reply.

In couple of swift movements, I untuck his shirt and slide my hands under it. I hear his breath catch. I’m so undone with wanting him, I momentarily think of stargazy pie to keep my teeth in check just in case as I dive back toward his neck.

Baz’s fingers grip my jumper and he’s arching his neck back against the bed, his self control subsiding at last.

"You tasted... so good," he murmurs suddenly.

I stop cold.

"It was a fantasy come to life..."

“You don’t have to tell me this.”

“Yes, I do,” he continues, breathless. “I didn’t want to come up for air.”

I prop myself up to look at him and thread my fingers in his hair. “How am I supposed to compete with that?”

“That’s what I’m trying to say,” he says, his eyes partially closed and fixed hungrily on me. “There is no competition. Between drinking your blood and having you kiss the life out of me… you win.”

My mouth finds his again, and I clutch him to me so tightly he whimpers. I marvel at how different he feels now that we’re both the same temperature. His lips actually feel warm against mine.

As I kiss him, I float a hand down and start undoing the buttons of his shirt. When I reach the bottom, I sit up on his lap and slide both my hands under the fabric to push it apart, my fingertips drifting over the pale skin of his chest. I bend down to kiss him over his heart, and I can hear it beating with my newly sensitive ears.

So many kisses. If I could live off this alone, I would.

I look up then to note the euphoric expression on Baz’s face. His black hair is splayed across the bed and long, dark eyelashes rest against his flushed cheeks. I run my hands over the smooth planes of his stomach. I’ve never been a wordsmith like Baz, but looking at him this way, only one word suits him.

He’s perfect.

As soon as I get his shirt off, he has a go at my jumper, using magic to keep it intact as he pulls it over my wings and head, tossing it away when he’s done. He pulls me down onto him so we lie skin to skin. Both of us being vampires now, it startles me to realize that Baz’s skin is a shade darker than my own.

“Thank goodness,” he hums.

“What?”

“They’re still here.” And his long fingers reach out to trace the moles and freckles on my shoulders, sending shivers through me. “Your skin looks so different now, I half expected them to disappear.”

“Yes, they’re still here,” I say. “Thanks to you, so’s the rest of me.”

**BAZ**

The sounds Snow makes as I deliver light kisses to each mole adorning his shoulder and neck are enough to make me blank out and ravage him whole, vampire or not.

I’m being hyperbolic, of course.

Actually, that’s what’s so miraculous about what’s happening right now. I don’t actually want to make a meal of him at all. I’m not remotely tempted. The unexpected benefit of being this close to him without the tease of his blood makes me think I should be a little nicer to Bunce next time I see her. Since teaching Simon how to put his fangs away, I don’t have to be on overwatch; I can turn off my thoughts and just let go.

Aleister Crowley, the things we could do...

I’ve just hooked my leg around his when he pulls his face away again. “Just one more question-”

“ _Simon_!” I whine.

“The very last one! I swear!”

I place both palms over my eyes. If I don’t look at him, perhaps I can resist silencing him with my teeth. “What is it _now_?”

Snow takes my wrists and pulls my hands away from my eyes. His gaze is so soft, it’s arresting.

“Do you think I’m dead?” he whispers.

I pause. He’s still draped over me, his arms strong and solid, and his heart beating next to my own. I examine his face, still decorated with moles, his slightly pouchy eyes gazing at me in their unremarkable shade of blue. I push my fingers into his curls bringing my palm to rest against his cheek. He still smells like a happy memory and Watford soap.

I smile.  

“No, love. You’re alive,” I whisper back, and I mean it.

Snow’s wings surround us, blocking out the last rays of light as the sun sinks behind the ramparts. I feel so concealed in his embrace, it’s like we’ve disappeared into the night sky. With Simon, I’m not afraid of the dark anymore.

And if he’s alive… maybe I am, too.

[Fin.]


End file.
